Living Donor Transplants at Crozer-Keystone

The Kidney Transplant Team at Crozer-Keystone has cared for more than 1,000 transplant patients since 1995. We perform all types of living donor transplants, including:

Direct Donation

One of the most common types of kidney donation is the direct, or living related/living unrelated, donation. This is the fastest way to get your new kidney, often without the need for dialysis. Unfortunately, not everyone who wants to donate a kidney is able to do it. Most commonly, the majority of potential donors interested in direct donation are incompatible with their intended recipient because they must be blood-compatible befroe the transplant can occur and also undergo very sensitive and complicated crossmatch testing and tissue matching. Some potential donors are found to have a medical condition that prevents them from donating.

Fortunately, if the donor and recipient are not a good match, they can participate in the Paired Exchange program.

Paired Exchange Donation

Often, recipients and their donors aren’t a good match because of incompatibility with their blood types or the recipients have antibodies that would attack the donor organ. These antibodies can severely harm your new kidney after transplantation and lead to rejection or severe infection. That’s where Paired Exchange Donation can be beneficial.

Paired exchange donation may be an option if you've found someone willing to donate a kidney but the donor kidney is incompatible with your blood or you're sensitive to their antigens. Rather than donating a kidney directly to you, your donor may give a kidney to a person whose blood and tissue is compatible with the donor's kidney, and you receive a kidney from the other recipient’s donor. When both individuals are ready for surgery, the transplants will be scheduled for the same day.

Anonymous Donation

The gift of an organ can save the life of a transplant candidate and the experience of providing this special gift to a person in need can serve as a very positive aspect of the donation. Currently, living anonymous kidney donation is the best option to expand the kidney donor pool in the United States and is done willingly and with no financial gain. Thousands of people die each year waiting for a compatible donor. Fortunately, there are these good Samaritans out there who are willing to risk their own quality of life to save the life of someone in need.

Anonymous donation is not only good for the recipient, but also potentially good for the donor Very few people are given the opportunity to be a hero. This type of donation provides the donor with a sense of truly contributing to society in a heroic and immeasurable fashion. The living anonymous donor saves a patient from a life on dialysis and provides hope for the future for someone in despair. This is psychologically uplifting and affirming for the donor.

For Additional Information

If you have a question about Living Donor transplants at Crozer-Keystone, email kidney@crozer.org or call 610-619-8420.